


In The Cicada’s Cry

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Winter Mornings - HeAteUs Survival Plan [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bathing, Blood, Blood Play, Branding, M/M, copious amounts of blood and its inappropriate use, inappropriate use of haikus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:24:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Hannibal tucks Will’s hair behind his ear again, despite how the boy twists gently, stubbornly against him. “You are an extension of me,” the older man reminds him, fingers tightening in the boy's hair just enough to bring their mouths together again. “And I will have perfection.”</i>
</p><p>WARNINGS for a lot of blood and the pain associated with it.</p><p>Will learning Japanese. Part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/132567">Odalisque and Concupiscent</a> verses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Cicada’s Cry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinneykid3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinneykid3/gifts).



> _“In the cicada’s cry, no sign can foretell how soon it must die."_

"Slower, Will."

A bright blue glower, angled up from beneath curls lank with sweat. Focus disrupted, intentionally, and regained with a breath, drawn and held.

It's trying, the precision required when the medium itself appears to be moving, though Will knows better than to suggest it actually is. He would feel the denial as a strike sent stinging against his cheek, as much to upset his concentration as in punishment for insolence.

Will sighs and stretches his neck, one hand splayed against the warmth beneath his fingers, and with the other he settles the implement again.

"Gently," another low warning, Will's hand held still as the words come. "The characters should be weighted only by the strokes necessary to make them. Any deeper and you will ruin the form."

Hannibal's smile is heard more than felt.

"And I will certainly know if your hand is too heavy, boy."

Will presses his lips together, a thin line, and exhales only as he draws the first line. It appears black, at first stroke, before drying to red.

Blood, drawn from the inkstone of Hannibal’s skin and welling warm from a scalpel cut, laid with a horse-hair brush, and Hannibal himself the canvas. That, too, his own insistence, a language so deep in his history and being honored with the blood he gives back to it.

Perhaps, in part, it’s true, though Will is convinced that such an unstable medium has been provided for a harsher punishment to be dealt later should he make a mistake - something he is certain to do. This is the first language he has learned that works with a new alphabet, a new set of rules, and it’s harder to absorb than simply memorizing.

Perhaps another reason for the blood, then.

The cut is small, just at Hannibal’s hip, the blood pooling now against the hipbone, not yet spilling to the sheets - Will had been careful with the depth. The words come to life against the inside of Hannibal’s arm. A haiku, heavier in meaning than the brush strokes that lay it. Hannibal’s choice.

The brush slips, just a little, and the final stroke of the second character bends awkwardly against the otherwise flawless shape.

A sound, displeased, hums through Hannibal and his fingers flex, though he barely moves.

“Inexcusable,” he sighs, and Will feels himself shiver, directing his eyes up again.

“Perhaps if you didn’t move,” he murmurs. A raised eyebrow his only response for the moment.

“Perhaps if you had paid attention in your lessons,” comes the reply after a sigh, tone patient and just a little amused. “You will erase it. I will not have traces of your incompetence against my skin.”

The look directed up this time is barely patient, cheeks flushed with the admonishment, jaw working hard to not say something further to bring more ire down upon himself once the lesson is complete. Instead Will swallows, sets his brush carefully between his knuckles and holds his hand away as he leans in to diligently and carefully lick the character from Hannibal’s arm.

Hannibal indulges himself in watching, lifting his head just enough to see Will's long lashes dark against flushed cheeks, the pretty pink tip of his tongue lapping the soft inside of Hannibal's arm to erase his mistake. The boy lifts a hand to his mouth as he leans back, chasing the copper taste of Hannibal's blood from his lips, and offers a coy smile as he trails a finger across his mouth.

"Again," responds Hannibal as he settles back against the bed. He is bare, entirely, muscles strung strong across his frame even in rest. He is unmoved by the winsome look he's given - far more pleased by the narrow look Will shoots him instead.

"You're fortunate that I feel forgiving, and do not make you begin again entirely with each mistake."

Will takes up the brush again, muttering, "Lucky me." The hair is soft as it draws from the inkwell that still blooms darkly from Hannibal's skin, and Will teases there for a moment, pressing the excess blood from the bristles against Hannibal's hipbone.

"Do not disappoint me," intones Hannibal.

Blue eyes to brown, another soft press of the brush so as not to drip, and Will settles on his knees again to start on the character anew.

To say his lessons had been going poorly would be unfair, as with all languages Will has picked up Japanese quickly, by sound alone, though his writing and reading are the aspects of study Hannibal most enjoys correcting, providing deep distractions or sharp ones to hear Will’s voice shudder, to claim an excuse for another punishment.

In truth, Will has not forgotten a single lesson since Hannibal had insisted he start the language.

Will leans close to press his lips to the well of blood and the cut beneath it to suck it clean after a few moments more of work. The brush he holds away, the first line of the haiku rests drying against Hannibal’s skin.

He tongues against the thin cut, knows if he pushes just hard enough he can slip his tongue between the folds of skin, but doesn’t try, not now. When he pulls away, his lips are darker and Will licks them clean, a brief glance up, a wide bloodied grin of pleasure, before he arches over Hannibal and up towards the bedside table, claiming the scalpel again to create himself more ink for the next line.

Hardly part of his lesson, the particular attention Will pays to the cut, but an element of his method - one of so many that Hannibal is particularly willing to indulge and watch grow. Especially when it rewards Hannibal’s own patience with the sight before him now, watching Will rather than the blade, as the boy absently traces a stripe of blood from between his teeth and purses scarlet-stained lips in a flicker of concentration.

Another line, parallel to the first, left across Hannibal’s skin in sacrifice to the charming creature that preens astride him.

Hannibal resists the urge to turn and pin the boy beneath him, to chase the taste of his own blood from Will’s mouth and force a moan from it with a brutal fucking, smearing the carefully placed characters and spanking his raw ass until it’s purple for causing Hannibal to ruin his work.

He resists with a sigh, content to imagine it instead, entirely still beneath Will’s hands, his guidance as he turns Hannibal’s arm to bare more skin. A submission, to be moved as Will would move him, to be marked by him temporarily and permanently, where white lines known or noticed only by them will last against his hips. And yet Hannibal’s eyes remain open, just enough to follow the curve and curl of brush against his arm.

Will knows he’s misplaced a line before he even finishes it, an agonized little sound as he completes the line anyway and Hannibal shifts just a little, unable to resist it in his pleasure.

“Wrong. So much so that I wonder if you are doing this deliberately,” Hannibal challenges softly.

Will answers only by pressing the brush harsh against the cut to draw a hiss from Hannibal, a tensing of muscles that suggests restraint of movement rather than genuine pain. He doesn’t meet his eyes when he licks the length of his arm, up to the last character he remembers being entirely correct, beautifully executed and in its proper place.

He cleans his mistakes as though he’s worshipping the living canvas beneath, renewing, first smudging the life against its source then cleaning it bare.

He takes his time, tilts his head to suck the skin between his lips, to kiss it softly, drag his teeth against it, until the smooth pale surface is marred by speckled red.

“I will begin the line again,” Will sighs, resigned, eyes up, and then he sits closer to kiss Hannibal slowly, feeding him the taste of himself, the salty metal that he can feel pumping beneath his free hand, vibrating through the end of the brush to its tip until he lifts it to start again.

A movement, slight but enough to send a spill of blood unnoticed down Hannibal’s hip, following the curve of it down into the sheets. Wholly unminded as he leans in to grasp Will’s cheek, inscribed arm held still, and keeps him close for a moment more. Tongues as soft together as the brush that paints poetry across him, the warmth of his own blood blooming beautifully across the heat of Will’s lips. They part again, only reluctantly, Hannibal’s gaze turned dark with fascination as he watches Will and settles once more.

“Yes,” Hannibal finally agrees, “you will. And you will complete it without error.” He swallows, to still the coiling in his stomach, the familiar pressure of arousal quickening his pulse. “You will complete it beautifully.”

And he does, his skin brought to flushing by the way Hannibal watches him, remains still and obedient beneath Will’s hands, a monster held at bay by no more than a brush of thumb across the inside of Hannibal’s elbow as Will finishes a line. A wolf, bloodthirsty, satisfied enough by the feel of Will’s legs spread across his hips.

The late afternoon sun covers them both in gold through the shifting pale curtains, and Hannibal spares attention for nothing but Will. Subdued and stirred both, especially as Will completes the last character with a sigh and sits back to draw the brush between his lips. Genuine ivory, pressed against the curl of his tongue as Will drags it softly until the brush grazes his cheek - a flourish of scarlet left behind before he tastes the blood from the bristles as well.

“Incorrigible boy,” Hannibal’s voice is just above a whisper, roughened by how sincerely he doesn’t mean a word he says.

A grin, slow to bloom and utterly delighted, wicked, as Will leaves the brush with just the barest suck, painting a delicate line just below his bottom lip. He sets it aside, on the holder it belongs with, careful to keep the bristles off the surface, away from dust and dirt that could possibly be there.

“It’s all correct,” he informs Hannibal, raising an eyebrow as though to argue should the man see fit to correct him again. He draws his thumb over the mark below his lip and sucks it clean, a slow roll of hips to accompany the gesture. “And it is the first time I have written the poem for you.”

Hannibal had made him memorize it the night before, the characters still complex and new to Will but he had tried, drawn his fingers over the lines again and again, softly to remember their shape.

Now he knows their taste.

Hannibal’s lips part in sympathy as Will’s move against his thumb, a bare gesture but a rare one in how utterly unintentional it is. An immense and genuine pleasure driving through Hannibal that brings his hips up languid against Will, watching as the weight of his body moves to ride smoothly against it.

His arm, however, remains unmoving, turned against the bed where Will left it even as Hannibal’s fingers skim the inside of Will’s thigh.

“And it will be your first time reading it to me,” Hannibal informs him, glowing beneath the look of disbelief that appears for an instant and is gone.

Will’s eyes narrow. He knows he can’t read it well, his association of character to sound is weak at best, and although he memorized the shape of the words with his hands, his lips are unfamiliar with them.

Regardless he deliberately twists, arches and stretches to rest against Hannibal, chest to chest, head ducked against his ear, one hand gently stroking his hair as his other threads his fingers with Hannibal’s and lifts his arm to see the characters clearer.

None have dripped, all perfectly shaped and beautiful as they dry a dark, pleasant brown.

Will licks his lips, turns his head gently, and presses the unfamiliar words gently to Hannibal’s temple, slow, one at a time and deliberate on pronunciation.

Hannibal’s arm settles over him, around Will’s shoulders to hold him there and trace the curve of his shoulder. The recitation is steady despite his uncertainty, and Hannibal listens with eyes closed to the words carried on a breath now rather than blood,. He tilts his head to kiss the poem from Will’s mouth when he finishes speaking.

“In the cicada’s cry, no sign can foretell how soon it must die,” Hannibal translates softly. He finally moves his painted arm, to bring a hand to Will’s hair and twist a curl between his fingers. Tucking it behind Will’s ear, with a brush of the back of his fingers down Will’s cheek, Hannibal smiles, just a little.

He ducks his head against Will’s, kissing the dried blood smudged across his cheek from the brush, the dark stains trailing from the decadent curve of his lips. “Three,” Hannibal murmurs softly, hand framing Will’s cheek. “Three mistakes, as you recited. Do you care to hear them?”

The boy’s fluster reaches a peak, sharp and sudden, and he explodes a sigh, rolling his eyes only to narrow them again at Hannibal.

“That’s bull-,” he narrowly stops himself, corrects. “That’s not fair. It’s only been a few weeks. It’s my first time reading it.”

“And do you imagine that you will have heard and seen every word, every sentence before you encounter it in the wild?” Hannibal tucks Will’s hair behind his ear again, despite how the boy twists gently, stubbornly against him. “You are an extension of me,” the older man reminds him, fingers tightening in the boy's hair just enough to bring their mouths together again. “And I will have perfection.”

_Perfection is dull._

A familiar worry, a familiar fear, yet Will feels it merely swell in his chest before coiling into his pulse. It does not steal his breath anymore. He sighs when Hannibal lets him, frowns.

"What did I get wrong?"

Hannibal moves again, a minor adjustment to bring his arm nearer Will, nearer his own hand curled around the boy.

He recites each sound as he points to the character, first in verse, then syllable by syllable, murmuring his corrections to Will against the boy’s hair, hums, pleased, as Will repeats, recites the poem for him again.

They are silent, after, just soft lazy warmth between them.

"A fitting poem," Will says at last, moving to cross his arms over Hannibal’s chest, to rest his chin on top. After a moment more his lips tilt in a grin.

"How will you punish me?"

Hannibal's brows lift towards the lithe little thing laid across the length of him. He sighs, considering, still relaxed and warm beneath, and his hands spread across Will's arms, down his spine.

"Since your errors - however minor," Hannibal allows in his contentment, "relate not to your knowledge of the characters, but rather your performance of them, you will perform them again."

Will's grin widens, caught between his teeth as his fingertips fall across the cuts stiffening on Hannibal's hip.

"In writing and in recitation."

"You just want me to cut you again, you secret masochist," responds Will, curling closer against Hannibal to kiss along his neck. Hannibal lifts his chin to allow it, neck bared to the vicious boy that drags his teeth against it. Will perceives the amusement before he sees it, and his brows furrow.

Slender fingers press and curl into Hannibal's chest hair as Will pushes himself to sitting. Legs alongside Hannibal's ribs, the boy sits perched, feline and suspicious.

"Have I not endeavored to teach you, for as well as you would learn?" blinks Hannibal, feigning insult with a barely held smile. "Why should I - rather than you - wear the marks of your mistakes?"

He sits and spreads his hands, to bring the boy towards his mouth and press it against his chest. Tasting the sweetness of his skin, summer in the salt of his sweat. One hand drifts, to find the inside of Will's thigh instead, teasing the sensitive skin and soft hairs with his fingertips.

"Here," Hannibal decides. "They need not be deep, but they will be correct."

Will blinks, twists and shoves a little, holds Hannibal away by his shoulders and narrows his eyes at the expression of contentment that he sees in response.

"The scalpel, Will," Hannibal intones. He kisses Will's fingers where he finds them against his shoulder. "A more precise implement, although the weight of your strokes should fall no heavier."

A tremble passes through Will like a breeze, over and away, barely felt but utterly refreshing to the man holding him. He swallows.

"I thought you sought perfection," he murmurs, and Hannibal smiles wider, kissing up to the boy’s wrist, up further to the inside of his elbow.

"When you draw the characters correctly they will not mar you,” comes the amused reply. He knows Will holds pride enough in his appearance to deliberately work the characters properly into his skin. He will hesitate and think before each stroke. He will remember.

"You will sit back against the headboard," Hannibal sighs. “Spread your legs and repeat the poem on your skin. Just once is enough - you will learn."

A soft noise escapes Will at the idea of such permanence, yet neither he nor Hannibal consider his flawlessness in his lack of scars. The ones he wears were all hard won, all for Hannibal, all marks of the man’s ownership, of their connection.

He releases a soft breath.

"And if I refuse?" he asks, knowing, just as Hannibal knows, that he will not, that he cannot. “What punishment will find me then?"

Warm hands, strong, draw Will’s away from Hannibal’s shoulders. He brings each in turn to his lips, kisses the blood from his fingertips, and runs his tongue along Will’s index finger to draw it into his mouth. Sucking softly for a moment, letting Will slide it against his tongue, he hums a thoughtful sound in consideration of the question before withdrawing it slowly.

“If you decline, entirely your choice,” he begins, a gentle murmur, “then you should know before you do that I have little interest in teaching those who will not be taught. It would be a shame for us both to see you left to reconsider such an insolent decision - bound and spread, without use of my hands or yours to find any relief until such time as I feel you have the diligence necessary to continue our studies together.”

He seems no more hurried than before in his threat, and though both know well enough that they are past the point of abandonment or dismissal, they equally know that Hannibal’s patience far exceeds Will’s in this way, and that the keening pleas of his boy would be as satisfying as any symphony.

Hannibal sighs, content, as Will’s fingers push back through his hair to unsettle it, chasing a kiss against the mark on his wrist, smiling faintly as Will huffs a little sound of acquiescence to again wear Hannibal’s brands against his skin. Less fight each time, now that he can see the permanency of his place at Hannibal’s side, less fear in showing physically what they already know so intimately.

Turning, to pin Will briefly beneath him and smile against the mild exasperation in his kiss, Hannibal grasps Will’s waist in his hands and moves him to lean against the headboard.

“You will learn,” Hannibal assures him. “Your skin will bear no marks that are less than perfectly made.”

Another kiss, almost playful as the older man catches the boy’s lips between his teeth and receives another crooked grin for it. He grasps the scalpel from beside the bed and presses it into Will’s hand before Hannibal spreads his thighs wide, and for long enough to make Will blush, takes in the sight of him presented so beautifully.

“I will read poetry from your thighs,” promises Hannibal softly, before settling back alongside his boy.

Will swallows, turning the implement in his hands. Light, balanced, and incredibly sharp, so much so that barely resting it against skin would draw a pearl of blood from where the tip lies. He will not have to press hard, as Hannibal promises, but the ache will be incredible as the wounds heal, heat and swell and bruise as they do.

Will decides he will write the verse vertically, from just beneath his knee and down to the sensitive skin that trembles even with the thought of it. He shifts to press his shoulder gently against Hannibal at his side, keeps his legs spread as he draws his knee just a little more, a better reach, and curves a palm beneath his knee to hold himself steady.

The first cut draws a gasp from him, the pain spiking sharp seconds after the cut is made, and each new stroke gets harder to perform. With the first character complete, Will sits back, lips pressed together hard, and swallows.

The verse feels infinite now, when it is his skin bearing it.

Hannibal doesn't distract now, doesn't disrupt Will's focus except when he settles between characters to breathe, flushed and pale all at once. The next is drawn into his skin with absolute patience and his entire focus, and the one after just as perfectly placed, before Will sits back to catch his breath and let the shaking ease from his hand.

Hannibal traces his finger along a trickle of blood that drips down Will's leg, and brings it to his lips.

"Beautiful."

Soft-spoken praise as he turns from the characters formed in flesh towards Will, cupping a hand against his cheek. Hannibal kisses his other, up to his temple, nuzzles into his hair and breathes him in.

"Extraordinary boy."

A languid stretch before Hannibal curls against Will's side, legs beneath his, wrapped around him and purring another low sound of eminent satisfaction as Will's skin parts beneath the blade again and he draws a sharp breath.

Halfway done, crimson smearing over pale skin, fresh and hot in Hannibal's nose and overwhelming in the beauty of the moment.

"You will remember it," Hannibal murmurs. "Every stroke of every character."

Will resists the urge to tell him that he doesn’t want to remember, that he has no reason for this poem to be pressed to his skin, but that’s a lie. The entire thought it a lie. He grits his teeth and makes a pained sound as the blade works closer to pain intricate pain against ever more sensitive skin.

Hannibal presses closer to him, breathing in the sweat and agony that radiates off Will like a perfume, fills his nostrils and darkens the pupils that spread to fill the brown of his eyes. He murmurs the meaning the every character on its own against Will’s temples, down to press the words to his cheek. A soft distraction that he knows Will will claim he heard not a word of, but will remember verbatim when Hannibal demands it of him.

He lets him rest, scalpel held tight in his fist, the point far away from any skin in case he accidentally does it damage. Will trembles, fingers of his free hand white against his leg to hold it still, teeth gritted, the sinews standing stark in his neck and loosening in a pliant sigh as Hannibal kisses there.

“The next line, Will, begin it slowly.”

A whine, gentle, pained, and then Will licks his lips, parts them wet, and ducks his head to look at the damage he has already done his skin. The top-most character has started to gently bruise around the deepest parts of the cut, made that way as a brush would press harder to paper.

As Hannibal taught him.

He sets the end of the blade down just above skin and his voice trembles on a whimper when blood swells in the scalpel’s wake. He doesn’t close his eyes. The character he had broken against Hannibal’s skin now flawless on his own.

"Breathe," Hannibal whispers against Will's temple, eyes closed, ensconced in the tension required to do this, to submit himself so entirely to Hannibal's demands that he would do this for him.

For Hannibal alone, and no other in the world, Hannibal knows, recalling the spray of blood across the ceiling of a cheap apartment that now seems so long ago when a man deemed unworthy made motion as though to mark Will as his own.

"You must breathe. It will lessen the pain, allow the adrenaline to pass more easily through you and still your hand," continues Hannibal, broad hand curling against the scar on Will's stomach, heel to fingertips covering the mark from hip to hip. He watches, just enough, until he feels Will's breathing deepen, stabilize, and draws his mouth gently across Will's shoulder as he begins the last character.

It takes as long as twice as the others now, Will's nerves rattled by the pain, the blood that illuminates the marks and paints his leg, but he draws a deep breath as he finishes, dropping the scalpel onto the nightstand and curling his fingers back over the headboard with a long, aching grimace.

"Perfect."

A rarer praise than any, one Will isn't sure he's ever heard before from Hannibal, forever dissatisfied with the world around him, forever ravenous to reform all things in it to suit his purpose, his pleasures.

And this, Will spread and bare, Will willing to take a blade to himself to write poetry in his flesh, to carve himself so beautifully for Hannibal… Hannibal can hardly think of another word for it beyond that.

"Perfect."

Will sighs, a harsh thing, and curls his other leg towards himself, in an effort to self soothe, to bring himself into a smaller less vulnerable position to avoid more pain, more threat of it. He shudders, whimpers in pain as Hannibal leans over him and presses his lips to the blood against his thigh, lapping it clean as Will had done his arm, only here he leaves the thin dark wounds in reminder.

Will wonders if they will ever fade.

His breathing grows quicker, shallower, the lower down his thigh Hannibal moves, the pain increasing and the promise of pleasure so far ingrained in his system, in his body and mind and very soul, that Will finds himself opening again, just for this.

Hannibal lets his lips linger against each character, speaking its meaning softly, his turn now to taste each and remember. Kissing slowly, allowing his tongue to follow their lines, absorbing every twitch of muscle beneath him and every whimper. He settles between Will's legs and is heavy above him again, careful not to brush Will's thigh, laying the same worship against his boy's parted mouth and breathing poetry against him.

Gentle fingers work between Will's legs, teasing the softness of his cock and humming as it moves beneath his hand before he grasps lower still, to spread Will's untouched thigh a little wider.

Will's attention follows Hannibal's hand as he grasps the scalpel from beside the bed, heart racing thick in his throat.

"It's perfect," Will reminds him, nervous urgency in the flicker of his eyes, pupils blown to blacken out the blue of his eyes.

"It is," responds Hannibal agreeably, kissing him once more before settling back on his knees. The blade is brought lower, not with any sudden movement nor attempt at obfuscation, the flat of it pressed softly to Will's unbloodied leg.

"May I?"

Will swallows, thick, and blinks, utterly surprised, taken aback. He licks his lips shakes his head gently.

“Must you?” he whispers.

He regards Will thoughtfully, heavy-lidded and serene.

"If I wished to take, then I would take," he intones softly. The blade has not moved towards, nor away, a distinct curiosity in Hannibal's voice. "I asked, and so I offer, once, and it is yours to decline if it is," a pause, lips worked briefly between his teeth to taste the blood there, to taste the word, "undesirable to you."

Another swallow, a drawing of brows and Will shakes his head again. He settles lower, hips up against Hannibal’s knees, then higher up to be on top of them. His hands still threaded through the headboard behind him, fingers flexing, pale from how hard he’s holding there.

He accepts the kiss when Hannibal offers another, a wordless praise, this, and Will wonders if the questions of choice are ever genuine, not in that Hannibal would disregard his response but simply because Will cannot bring himself to refuse.

Will presses his forehead to Hannibal’s after, soft, a reassurance, and lies back when the other sits up, pulls away. He allows his leg to be moved, spread further, bites the inside of his lip as the scalpel rests against the dip of muscle, where his thigh joins his hip, a mirror to where he wears the brand Hannibal had given him.

He doesn’t manage to keep his eyes open for this, closing them tight and forcing himself not to tremble, to shift, to buck away. These cuts press cruelly deep, as though Hannibal seeks to have the character never fade from him, and Will parts his lips on soft cries of pain as the knife is turned to create the beautiful calligraphy of changing thicknesses a pen would emulate.

He splays a hand across Will's stomach, a comfort perhaps, to let Will feel his own breathing beneath Hannibal's palm, and to ensure he does not move unexpectedly and cause a line to curve out of place. His thumb strokes against the scar there, affection to juxtapose the movement of the scalpel as it separates skin and tissue, and Hannibal's entire attention focused on it. Aware of the nearness to the femoral vessels - how easy it might have been once, so long ago, to let the blade slip a hair deeper and sever them - and skilled enough to not draw more blood than necessary.

Although there is a lot, and Will can feel it, past the characters carved by his own hand and pulsing beneath Hannibal's surgical precision. He swallows, hard, another little sound, and wets his lips.

"Breathe," Hannibal reminds him, feeling Will's stomach move a little quicker, and then settle again, forced to calm.

A final stroke, long and with a flourish, not merely copying a character but distinctive, particular in its movements and in Hannibal's familiarity with it to make it less a mimic and more a signature.

He curls his fingers against Will's stomach and sets the scalpel aside, gaze focused for a moment more on the blood that wells from it, staining the sheets darker than the fine, faint lines that Will traced into himself. A whimper from the boy distracts him from it, pulls his attention back to where Will hangs trembling to the headboard as the pain erupts through him in the cessation of new cuts.

"Read," Hannibal purrs against Will's mouth, almost a plea in how intensely Hannibal wants to hear it, his own heart moving faster now, racing when he lets it. Overwhelmed by the beauty and obedience of Will spread and scarlet beneath him, the scent of blood and sweat, the sweet lilting agony of his boy hurting for him, to please him, to give him what no one in the world would.

"Read it, for me."

“I can’t see it,” Will gasps, almost sobs against him, eyes still closed and body pulled taut under the hands that press to him now.

He feels the pain, the throbbing between his legs, that seems to echo up his bones, to every part of him that’s living and breathing and staying so obediently still.

“Look, Will.”

And he does, forcing his head to the side, his hands from the headboard, Will pushes himself to sit, ducks his head to see the mark against him. Through the mess of blood, some still seeping freely from the damaged skin, Will can see it, the dark flesh beneath, flesh that isn’t meant to be seen this way.

He swallows. Brows drawn and throat working before he parts his lips and sighs.

“Wolf,” he breathes, and the sound dissolves into another soft whimper. “Wolf,” he repeats. “Your wolf, your little wolf.”

He can feel the boy trembling beneath him, knows it's something entirely out of his control, body flooded with adrenaline, endorphins - all manner of chemicals born of pain and physical trauma, and for this boy, his boy, the particular pleasure that his beautiful mind finds from those things.

"Always," Hannibal responds, ardent in the kiss that steals Will's shaking breath from him, that smothers his soft sounds of hurt beneath it. He shifts forward, hips pressing into Will, a gentle roll that drags his skin through the blood sticky on Will's thighs and drives another cry from him.

Enraptured by the sound, Hannibal ducks his forehead against Will's, nuzzles his cheek, breathes deeply and exhales on a low moan as Will squirms beneath him.

"Hannibal, please…"

The moan darkens, a rumble from down in Hannibal's throat as he lays kisses against Will's cheek, his mouth, his throat, tucking his head beneath Will's chin. He is lost to him, lost to this, elevated by the pain his boy can take and bear so beautifully, overcome by it and needing more, as ever, one more taste, one more push of hips, one more kiss, Hannibal now insatiable as he reaches for the lube, pushing aside the scalpel, the brush, to grasp for it.

Will thrashes, for a moment, the pain too sharp and too raw for something as comforting as the thought of their joining, it makes him shudder in fear of more pain.

"Nnn -"

But he can never complete the word, not here, where he can feel how Hannibal trembles with him, where he knows the man appreciates and enjoys and adores everything about him. Another sound of pain, another jerk from it, but Will doesn't shift away when two fingers press in, deep and slow, cool from the lube but deliciously familiar.

"Let," he gasps, "let me... on my knees..."

The fingers stretch, splay, draw Will's plea into a moan even as he protests and Hannibal hums a smile against his cheek, positively dangerous to seem so satisfied and still be ravenous for more.

"I want to see your face," Hannibal murmurs, watching from so near that all he can see is the parting of Will's mouth on a high, twisting keen as he adds another finger. It isn't an instruction, but rather a denial, unreasonable that he shouldn't look on his boy right now, unimaginable that this moment would pass without Hannibal drinking down every whimper and shivering beneath every scratch of fingernails.

Hannibal works him wider, careful not to lay weight against Will's thighs, leaking clear now from his cuts, careful not to open them again until he does, slicking himself and rocking slowly inside of his boy, turning his hips to feel Will tense around him, moaning when Will sobs and his breath hitches into silence and Hannibal's hips grind into Will's thighs and poetry spills hot between them.

It’s dizzying, already so from the blood spilled for Hannibal’s lesson, now more so from the pressure, the agony that zips through Will like electricity with every thrust, though familiar and gentle. His hands slide up to curve over Hannibal’s shoulders, gripping tight, drawing nails harsh down the muscled expanse of his back as the pain grows worse for him, and as pleasure mounts with it.

“It hurts,” sighed, a confession followed by a smile, pained but genuine, and a laugh as Will recalls every other time the words have been spoken, for the benefit of sparking that sadism in Hannibal, rather than a genuine admission.

Now it’s true, now the pain sends Will arching back hard, drawing his knees up and holding them wide, desperate to get the pain to lessen and knowing it won’t, that every push will still split him at the seams, that every rub will draw more blood between them.

It’s depraved, sick, and yet he finds himself rolling his hips down, forward, sighing, moaning, crying out his pleasure as it mounts in a coiling heat in his groin.

“More.”

"Yes," Hannibal snarls against Will's throat. Every sensation of Will's body tightening around his cock, the red lines left down his back that draw a sharp hiss of breath, the feel of warm wet heat spreading against his own skin now, bled from Will, bled for him… all of it is felt, taken, held and prized and Will made sacred in his sacrifice.

He presses a hand beneath Will's knee to bring his leg higher, driving slow, deep inside of him now, struck breathless by the yelp when Will's writing is widened by the movement.

"Again, Will," insists Hannibal as he curls his fingers against Will's cheek, kisses scattered across his face, his neck and shoulders, any part of the tense, coiling boy that he can reach.

The sole object of such devotion, the only one to be worshipped and revered so entirely as this.

“Hurts, Hannibal, it hurts, fuck, _fuck_ -”

Will jerks, twists, an instinct to get away from the pain, from the person causing it, and yet he finds himself pulled closer, one arm hot beneath his back, arching him higher, in a bend Will usually sustains so well on his own, but can’t bring his body to obey now.

“Say it again,” he repeats, and Will nearly cries in earnest, the sound pulled from him an agonized moan, lilting into a whimper.

“More,” he gasps. Hands claw over Hannibal, down to the sheets beneath them, up above his head to grip the headboard again to have something to ground himself with.

The swearing goes unnoticed, unimportant now, when there is so much pulse and heartbeat pounding between them.

Hannibal holds him there, lifted from the bed, supported, by his own hands braced and his own legs wrapped shaking and Hannibal's arms secured beneath him. In service to him, bent to suit the undulations of Will's body in his exquisite agony and extraordinary ecstasy, watching the roll of his hips down against Hannibal's own, the tense shifting of his stomach as Will, without knowing it, works himself against Hannibal's cock far harder than Hannibal moves against him.

Held weightless, this skinny, unfathomable boy that writhes and parts for him, mouth and thighs and skin and body, who opens himself up entirely to be given over to this, Hannibal begs him again, "Tell me how it feels, Will. Tell me."

Will lets his head fall back, neck arched as he groans out his pain.

"It - fuck - it fucking hurts," he whimpers, voice rising high and sweet, and with pleasure snarling tight in his stomach as he suddenly rocks harder into Will, Hannibal wonders about the right choices he's made in his life to find himself here. He drops a hand, running his palm rough across the poem carved into Will's thigh to coat his fingers before grasping Will's length, his own release held at bay to bring the boy to further hardness, cock swelling flushed and curved against his blood-smeared belly.

Hannibal grins as he tugs, painfully slow across the head, and murmurs, "Good boy."

Will groans, jerks once, in pain, turns his head, cheeks flushed and hot and lips parted. And when he jerks again it’s in utter pleasure, and he cums against Hannibal’s fingers, hot and slow, pulsing white to smear with the blood there.

Will wonders if he would feel ill from this were he not involved.

If the image would draw nausea and fear from him as it would - and should - any normal person.

Yet he feels nothing but relief, delight at being the cause of the breath of the man above him hitching, his eyes widening as he looks on.

He strokes slow, squeezing, watching Will's lips part shaking as Hannibal milks his release from him in full, watches the pale liquid fall and mix with scarlet across his belly. Swallowing hard, his fingers spread, splay through the mess spread bright and warm over his stomach, curl and stroke through it all, the entire essence of Will, his Will, his boy and his alone.

Salt, copper, slick against his tongue as Hannibal wraps his lips around a finger and with a bare movement, hardly a thrust, and a quaking sigh Hannibal buries himself and shudders, filthy fingers still pressed against his lips. The release swells through him and bursts with such intensity that he is nearly dizzy for it, a cracking sensation all through his ribs that makes it so hard to breathe when Will is presented this way in front of him.

Depravity, debauchery incarnate, and none in the world more beautiful.

"Perfect.”

A scarce sigh, almost inaudible, and Hannibal himself nearly shaking as he lowers Will slowly back to the bed. Smoldering soft kisses, again and again, as he only then withdraws himself from Will.

A cry, a click in his throat as Will swallows another down and turns his head away, eyes barely open, body fighting the cloying sleepiness that settles over him from the loss of blood, from the adrenaline, from the release.

He can feel Hannibal kiss against his cheek, down to his jaw, lower still to his throat.

He swallows, feels the man sigh as though that motion alone was worth hours of worship.

It’s a strangely powerful feeling, knowing he controlled Hannibal so completely with his body, his obedience, his desire and need to take the pain given, the pain offered.

He parts his lips as Hannibal kisses the corner of his mouth, tastes the sharp salt of blood and cum, smiles.

“Draw me a bath,” he whispers, eyes opening to follow Hannibal before he turns his head and looks at the man properly. “Wash me clean.”

A brow lifts, but no more protest can be mustered than that. The older man makes an agreeable noise, despite how heavy he feels, how bone-deep his satisfaction, and lets another few kisses linger against Will before slowly drawing back from him.

He groans a little, stretching languid and almost a little unsteady as he stands - for just an instant, Will sees a single uneven step. No mind for the expensive tools swept off the nightstand in his eagerness, no mind for the sheets stiff with blood, just a long stretch, up through his shoulders, neck, head turning, as he pads off into the bathroom without a second thought.

Water runs, tested, adjusted, tested again and something medicinal added to it, a camphor smell stinging sharp against his nose. Hannibal hums, and returns to observe the boy spread across his bed like a crime scene.

A fond smile, brief, as he leans low to scoop Will easily into his arms, however tired, and bring him into the bath, nuzzling his hair as they go.

"Filthy boy," he murmurs.

"By your making," Will agrees, purring the words, humming quietly as Hannibal allows him to first stand in the shower, rinsing the majority of the blood so as not to taint the water fully. When he sinks into the bath it is with a groan, lips back in a snarl at the sting against his cuts, but he doesn’t fuss, doesn’t struggle.

Will leans his head back against Hannibal as the man stands behind him, supports his head unnecessarily in an oddly doting gesture. Passive, devoted. Will licks his lips, feels his heart hammer and jump at the rudeness, yet says regardless:

"Bring me a cigarette."

The fingers in his hair pause, twist gently before, with an amused huff, Hannibal moves to obey this as well. Will grins, resists the urge to laugh by biting his lip, releasing it when Hannibal returns. He parts his lips, waiting, accepts the filter between them, flicks his eyes up expectantly for a light.

Power. Incredible and, for the moment, near-absolute power.

When he exhales, Will keeps his eyes on the man in front of him, fingers long and careful in holding the cigarette out, over the edge of the tub. One of his knuckles is still smudged with blood. He pays it no mind.

Not unaware of the shift between them, but unresistant to it, Hannibal draws himself up beside the tub and reaches for the soap. To clean him, as Will asked, to feel his body again, pliant and heated by the water that's just towards the side of too hot.

It smells of pine, and he rubs it first against his hands before bringing it to his boy's lanky body. His shoulders, his chest, languid circles across and down.

"May I?" Another pique of amusement as Hannibal's eyes dart to the cigarette and back again, taking a long drag as Will presses it to his lips and grins.

"No smoking in the house," Will reminds him, and Hannibal scrubs a hand across Will's stomach, not yet seeking lower. He regards him with a raised brow and smoke unfurls from his mouth.

"The rules are mine to adjust."

Only soapy hands finally against Will's thighs, careful not to pull the skin, to open it again despite his deliberation in doing so not a half hour before.

"And mine to break." Will clicks the consonant pleasantly, lip between his teeth as the sensitive skin is touched, cleaned for him by careful hands. He takes another drag without offering it to Hannibal, then considers. "You are proud of me."

A hum, agreement if not outright statement. Hannibal had lavished his adoration and delight on the boy, worships him gently now. Will knows his answer.

"When last we shared a cigarette like this," he sighs, ashes it to the floor, disregarding the displeasure at the motion, "you claimed me."

A soft reminder, before Will takes another long drag and meets Hannibal’s eyes, holds the gaze. After a moment he holds it out for him.

"May I?" he asks, bending his fingers gently, holding it just out of reach so the man understands. When Hannibal takes it, Will grins.

He turns it over in his fingers, studies the newfound weight of the thing. No revelation in it, Hannibal realizes, and this itself a revelation; somehow - and perhaps with many deliberate turns - he has found himself here, not merely considering the act suggested but already holding the cigarette between his fingers, knelt on the floor to give a bath to a beautiful, imperious boy with bright blue eyes.

Hannibal observes Will through a curl of smoke with a warning in his words, a curiosity that Will would desire this now, here, after Hannibal joyously drew so much blood and agony from him.

“I will be yours, if you mark me,” Hannibal reminds him.

A shiver teases itself up Will’s spine and he dips a little lower into the water, just meeting the remains of blood beneath his lower lip. He knows the living truth of it, they both know, but still the agreement must be struck, and Will’s pleasure deepens profoundly to hold this man in such sway that even now he holds the cigarette in wait.

“Yes.”

Dark amusement, black joy, as Hannibal nearly laughs, eyes locked on Will.

“Brave boy, to lay claim to such a thing. Very well, then,” he replies, and takes a drag so long he can feel the fire in his lungs and the scorch in his throat. The cigarette is placed gently back between Will’s lips when they unfurl for him, and the older man stands with another languid stretch, before settling on the edge of the tub, his feet in the water beneath Will’s back.

It's lazy, as it had been the first time, and the tension coils through Will’s limbs despite the fact that the pain will not be his own. He ashes it over the edge of the tub again, feels the gentle tightening of fingers in his hair before grinning and leaning his head back, fingers languid as they come up to pull the filter from between his lips, to pass it up for Hannibal to take between his own.

Will hisses as he sits up, still sore in shifting, still too raw for the pain to lessen simply by soaking the wounds, and turns to kneel, legs spread, to watch as further and further the cigarette burns.

Another two passes between them and Hannibal presents the filter to his boy, eyes hooded and head tilted, and Will takes it in silence, considering.

For a moment there is no sound at all but the gentle lap of the water as Will shifts within it. Then he swallows, a soft and languid thing, and parts his lips with his tongue.

"You will have its equal," he murmurs, eyes up to watch Hannibal until the other smiles, soft, and adjusts his position accordingly. Will blinks. Hannibal doesn’t. "Breathe."

He reminds himself what the boy has done for him, not only tonight, not merely the wounds and bruises worn with pride but the far more substantial sacrifices made. Reminds himself of the cataclysm sworn in Will's name should something befall him. Sighs, with the reminder too that hypocrisy is unbecoming, and he cannot deny his boy, especially with his own marks still streaking red into the bath.

Hannibal's legs spread wider, palms against them, skin still stained brown with the boy's blood.

"Yours," he intones, a dire but genuine amusement that only grows as Will grins crooked at him.

"Always."

Hannibal hums, leans when Will draws in the last drag, brings their mouths together to share the smoke with him, drawing it past Will's small smile and into his lungs instead.

Fed on Will's life, sustained by him and fulfilled by him, as none other.

Exhaled on a sustained sigh, lips curled a little as his gaze unblinking rests on Will. A movement, careful but sure, and the smoke billows on a sharp hiss of pain when the cigarette pressed and held against his thigh. The snarl deepens but he does not move barring a tremor in his fingertips, a shake that spreads up into his shoulders until the smolder ceases.

"Fuck," Hannibal seethes, and Will's smile twitches slightly wider at the breath of Lithuanian. A shift, an attempt to force the shaking from his limbs, and Hannibal works his lips between his teeth and out again as the color drains from his face.

He wonders less at the pain of it - peculiar though it is, a knifelike cold that somehow feels numbed and tingling raw all at once - than at Will's ability to do so, that and so much more.

"Our Faustian accord," Hannibal observes, voice suppressed to still its shaking. He angles to regard the black and scarlet burn bubbling blood and ashy-speckled ichor from his skin.

Will discards the cigarette to the tile floor and leans closer to kiss Hannibal properly, one hand up in his hair, the other against the edge of the tub, for balance. He remembers the pain, remembers the way Hannibal had held him still, though he needn’t have. The smell is just the same, just as acrid, just as revolting, and yet there is a terrifying relief in it, that Hannibal had said yes, that he had done this, for Will.

When he pulls back, Hannibal rests their foreheads together and Will allows it.

“In ash and blood,” he agrees softly.

When Hannibal finally tilts his head back, Will shifts in the tub to give him room to sink into it, hissing as the hot, medicated water hits his wound, but settling once the shock has worn through.

Will gives him space, then leans in again, another languid, slow kiss, mouth open and coaxing the same from Hannibal, both trembling with their own scars, both pleased to be wearing them for the other.

Without a word, Will shifts, pulls his hand back and strikes Hannibal had across the face. His own remains impassive, neutral, only a small smile meeting Hannibal’s angry glare.

“I speak Lithuanian, too,” he reminds him gently, entirely too pleased with himself.

Hannibal's jaw works, a single shift as he closes his eyes for a moment, conspicuously still in what Will can correctly assume to be a resistance to pinning the boy beneath the water until the thrashes and turns blue. Red lines raise where slender fingers broke across his face and after tense moments pass, he releases the breath that was held, and regards Will at length.

"Then we will begin our next lessons far sooner than expected," he responds, softening his voice despite the quickening of his heart. "I would not want to fall behind on ensuring your education, considering your overachievement."

His hand slides, across Will's chest, strokes his shoulder, and traces up the curve of his neck to brace beneath his jaw. He squeezes, just enough, pulls Will, just enough, digs his nails in just enough to earn a little yelp and to bring their mouths together.

"Since I am now, entirely, yours."


End file.
